Page 18 of Modern Persuasion

We took the train from New York to Boston the following afternoon. It was a tense ride in first-class seating. We sat facing each other with a table between us. Patrick and Fredrick had window seats and spent the trip on their laptops. I spent most of the trip reading one of the books I had grabbed at PubCon. Only Louisa looked bored.

"Emma," Louisa said. "You must be so excited to show us Chicago. Freddy, did you know Emma went to Northwestern?"

"Actually, I do," Fredrick said without looking up from his laptop. "We knew each other our last two years there."

Louise was silent. I eventually looked up to see her wide-eyed, mouth opened, looking back and forth between us. "What!? Emma, you never told me you knew Freddy."

I sighed but looked back at my book. "I knew Fredrick while I was in Chicago," I said.

Louisa adjusted her position to turn toward Fredrick and leaned toward him, her hand on his arm. "OMG, Freddy, what was she like? What do you think of her since you last saw her? Was she cool? Did she party? Did she get DRUNK!? OMG! OMG! OMG! I have to tell Mary! Mary will die!"

Fredrick stopped typing and lowered his laptop screen before looking at her. "I'm not the best judge of cool, but I did see her get drunk a few times. She's still the same, but different. New York has changed her."

He turned to look at me, and our eyes locked.

Louisa didn't notice because she had turned to me as well. "How? She seems the same to me."

"There is a hardness I never noticed in Chicago. It's as if she's lost all sense of wonder and curiosity and joy in the world."

"Oh, that's just being a New Yorker," Louisa said, waving her hand and dismissing all of it.

"Then I'm glad I'm not a New Yorker," Fredrick said, not breaking eye contact.

I sat there, feeling uncomfortable as all three looked at me. "I have to pee," I said, putting my book aside and getting up.

When I slid the bathroom door behind me, I shut my eyes tight and rubbed my eyes. I could feel the tears building. I had said the first thing that popped into my head so I could get out of there. I was uncomfortable with the feelings this was bringing up, and I knew I was ready to cry. I gave myself two minutes to cry and regret everything. After that, I wiped my eyes, blew my nose, fixed my makeup, and went back to my seat.

Boston, DC, and Atlanta passed quickly without incident. Thanks to Patrick and Louisa, my involvement with Fredrick was kept to a minimum. I had a chance to spend time with people I knew in the area. I had done so many conferences and book tours that bookstore owners and managers had become my friends, even if we rarely saw each other. The East Coast was easy for me. I dreaded LA and Chicago, but Los Angeles was Fredrick's home. There were parties and events that Patrick insisted I attend.

"Look, I know you have the life you want in New York. I just feel like you owe it to yourself to see what life would have been like if you had made a different decision," Patrick said one night as we had dinner together in Atlanta without Louisa and Fredrick.

He had been trying to bring this up throughout the tour, and I had been redirecting conversations when it happened. There was no way to shift the conversation now.

"Do all his friends know about me?" I asked, bracing myself for the worst news possible.

Patrick gave me a dubious look. "Emma, he wrote a whole fucking movie about your break-up. They all think the worst of you."

"Did you?" I asked, bracing myself worse.

"Honestly, yes. I was expecting another Abby," he said with a grin. "I thought Louisa was you when I first met her."

I had to laugh because nobody had ever mistaken Louisa and me. "I never knew he had a type."

Patrick drank some wine as he considered his response. "I think he shifted his type because of you. It is like he started dating the anti-Emma. The difference is that these women make him miserable."

"He seems to like Louisa," I said with a shrug.

"Louisa is the anti-Emma too," Patrick added, tapping his finger on the table. "Come to the parties so you can at least enjoy the confusion when people first think Louisa is you and then have to do a double-take when they realize this tall, statuesque brunette is the real Emma."

I shook my head. "Then they'll just ignore me and leave me alone. I really don't like parties. The anchor thing you noticed at the first signing was something we did for each other. Book signings are where I am comfortable. Parties... not so much, especially when everyone already knows who I am and has judged me. Fredrick won't help me."

"Then I will. Plus, you can meet Victor, who has an ass that won't quit," Patrick said and winked.

I couldn’t help but laugh. "He's not my type."

Patrick chuckled with me. "Oh, I know your type. Taller than you, a dork, who would rather be naked than in a tux, and no ass."

I felt myself blush. "He really looked good in that tux," I whispered.